that all the feelings, sentiments, and actions of old and young, among the people, flow unremoved and unamalgamated in another channel essentially separated from the former :-and, instead of greatly marvelling that the aspect of society has not undergone more important changes, we may well be filled with astonishment at the want of sagacity or unreasonableness of those, who could seriously expect changes so great and so decisive to result from causes so utterly inadequate. The ingredients that unite in swelling the current which flows in each channel exhibit in one respect the peculiar property of those substances that possess no chemical affinity-those substances that are not only mutually distinct, but mutually repulsive of each other. And if it be held an object of importance wholly to displace that which has the pre-occupancy, it can never be effected by the application of a small portion of antagonist ingredients as these might float innocuously on the surface. If effected at all, the one must be gradually dislodged by a corresponding increase in the volume of the other. That, in the case of education as hitherto generally conducted in India, this increase has yet been sufficient, is widely remote of the truth. For it is wholly incredible that mere elementary instruction, communicated under numberless disadvantages, can ever bear any reasonable proportion to the stupendous mass of prejudice and superstition which it is intended to remove, or destroy. Nor is the good effected by such a limited system simply partial in its nature and contracted in its extent; it is very uncertain in its duration. Of all the thousands of youths who have received a mere elementary education, how many have, in consequence, and solely in consequence of the same, contributed in after-life to the diffusion of enlightened and liberal sentiments ? How many have lent a more favourable ear to the announcement of the glad tidings? How many have become "burning and shining lights* ?" How many *The writer is aware, that there are occasional instances of persons who, in youth, happened to receive an elementary education, having in riper years become converts to the Christian faith. But in these cases, it were a glaring misapprehension of the real nature of the facts to attribute the enlightened reception of Christianity as an effect to the elementary education, as the proximate instrumental cause. The lines have fallen to these individuals in more pleasant places. By the working of a gracious Providence, they have for a season escaped as it were from the vortex of heathen society, and, during that time, have come in contact with some of the people of God-and from these has emanated an influence that has been blessed in subduing the souls of the wanderers to the Saviour. And such cases, instead of proving the inherent power of rudimental instruction in effecting great changes on character, only furnish an admirable illustration of the efficacy of after social and spiritual influences, to awaken into life and enshrine with the glories of true light and liberty. One striking corroborative would be found able and disposed to uphold even the present nadequate supply, in the event of European agents and influence being wholly withdrawn? We fear that the most boundless charity would weep over the scantiness of the catalogue. And, indeed, so long as there is no living principle infused to maintain life, and no active leaven to quicken the dull sluggish mass, things must in a great measure remain at once stationary, and absolutely dependent on foreign aid-aid which, from its very nature, must ever be feeble and precarious. And should no change of plans be sanctioned by the Legislative Almoners of Christian benevolence at home, the hands of the Executive in India must continue bound as with iron fetters, and the state of mental imbecility and childhood, so far as the cause in question shall operate, must be perpetuated from age to age. After the removal of a thousand generations, and the profuse expenditure of thousands of lives, and tens of thousands of gold and silver, we might look around for fruit, without discerning any to regale the eyes, or cheer the heart;-and even then might the sudden removal of foreign agency be the signal for a speedy and general relapse. This state of things suggests to us an extreme, but somewhat analogous case. In a country wholly destitute of indigenous forests, a new colony is planted. The soil is naturally excellent, and by proper cultivation may be made to bear the most useful products of distant climes. Among others, the seeds of trees of different species are transported and deposited in the earth; they soon germinate and grow. But the country is excessively cold, and the foreign supply of large timber being barely sufficient for ship-building, machinery, &c. all the young and rising plants are successively cut down for fire-wood: none are allowed to attain to the maturity of growth that is necessary for bearing fruit. At length, by some rupture among the nations, or some disastrous inroad of nature's elements, all supplies from abroad are cut off. Must not the general misery of the people be inevitable? Certainly. testimony may here be adduced-that of Mr. Spalding, American Missionary in Ceylon. Mr. S. has for 16 years had the charge of a circle of elementary schools, containing not fewer than 3,000 youths-and as the result of his long and extensive experience, he has been known repeatedly to declare, that, he "never knew a single case of conversion as the genuine fruit of these schools-a single case in which a decided change of character and of conduct appeared to result from the system of elementary tuition pursued.” To prevent, however, the triumph of the unbeliever, and the despair of the feeble-minded Christian, it must even at this stage of our inquiries and remarks, be specially noticed, that of late a different system of education has been adopted, and that out of a 110 young men, no less than 50 have now become the subjects of a change as important to the happiness of the individuals, as it is advantageous to society at large. But this is a bject on which we intend to enlarge hereafter. N N And yet had prudence and judgment guided their counsels, and directed their efforts, instead of a limited and precarious supply from abroad, they might have numbers of seed-bearing trees that would soon re-produce and multiply their kind a thousand-fold, and, at no very remote period, meet or even exceed every possible demand, and thus render the inhabitants independent of all future contingencies. Without prosecuting this subject any farther at present, it is surely not unreasonable to conclude, from the whole train of the preceding remarks, that all efforts that are confined to the direct method of attempting to impress the national intellect of a people must be very inadequate, and, if exclusively pursued, must entail nought but expence, and failure, and disappointment: in other words, that a national emancipation, intellectual and spiritual, cannot be permanently effected, by direct efforts to diffuse mere elementary knowledge exclusively among the dense mass of the youth of Hindoostan. D. II. Address to Christians in India. To the Editors of the Calcutta Christian Observer. DEAR GENTLEMEN, Ir gives me great pleasure to observe that your interesting periodical is so well supported by original contributions-and those in general of so superior a character. Long may your correspondents and yourselves continue to favour your readers with papers so excellent. May I be permitted, however, to submit for your acceptance an article, the publication of which, though not original, will, I think, tend materially to promote the great objects at which your publication aims—and especially that very important one, the exciting Christians in India to aid in the noble enterprize of Missions. The piece is extracted from the Oriental Christian Spectator for February, and will, I trust, if reprinted in your widely extended work, obtain a circulation more worthy of its excellence, and produce an effect most gratifying to its author. It has already, it is hoped, been perused with some profit, as well as much self-reproach, by, Gentlemen, "What Christian hesitates to allow the inappreciable value of an immortal soul? Who feels not, as he daily offers, at the mercy seat, supplications for himself and a world of sinners, that a single undying spirit outweighs, immeasurably, suns and systems, and the universe of matter? Oh ye, who once were dead in sins, but now are quickened together with Christ, who sometime were afar off, but now are made nigh by the blood of Jesus, revert solemnly to that period, when the Spirit of truth first convinced you of sin. When the Spirit's light first beamed into your heart, saw you not by that light, a picture of your moral foulness, which made you tremble, and well nigh drove you to despair? When you beheld the apparently insuperable barrier which sin had placed between your God and you, and, almost hopeless of heaven, had your eyes fully opened to a view of hell, where is the language that can express the value you then ascribed to your immortal soul? How can the feelings be described, which racked you, as you thought of the favour of God to you for ever lost, and dwelt with shuddering anticipation on the horrors of eternal woe? They only whose bosoms have been torn with emotions such as these,who have wrestled with God in deep, burning, agonizing prayer,-can rightly estimate the value of the soul. Oh! compared with one glance of God's reconciled countenance through the peace-speaking blood of the cross of Jesus, how worthless did every thing appear! This, this was the tortur ingly engrossing theme, how God might be appeased, how the soul might be saved. Happy ye who have been in such a case; for then ye were in the place of hope, and to you the covenant of grace was holding out its rich offers of redeeming love. And happy do ye oft in the ardour of holy gra titude confess yourselves to be, while ye adore the gracious Being who in sovereign mercy taught you your soul's value. But now that, leaning on the arm of the precious Immanuel, you are hastening to the home which He has purchased for you, oh, for the sake of Him "whom not having seen ye love, but in whom believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory," let your every affection be urged, your every faculty employed, to lead those who still are, as you once were, strangers to the covenant of promise, without hope, and without God in the world, into that sweet fellowship you now enjoy, and into a participa tion of that glorious hope, which, by faith supported, enables you to anticipate the joys of your heavenly inheritance. Have you, then, you who are followers of Christ, felt the value of your souls, and, knowing that every human soul is equally estimable with your own, will you not strive to lead others to the knowledge of their awful state by nature, and then to the remedy which you have found? Have you, when God's countenance seemed set in an eternal frown upon you, agonized in a paroxysm of despair, and nearly realized the hell you dreaded? And will you not pity your fellow creatures, who are yet unawakened from spiritual death, and who, if they thus continue until this rapidly wasting existence be consumed, must become through eternity a prey to that anguish of which the bare contemplation filled you with agony, though your imagination could conceive but a faint picture of its horrors? Did you feel your individual soul so precious, that, compared with it, all creation was but as dross and vanity, and will you not make every effort for the sake of five hundred millions of your fellow beings, whose souls, each precious as your own, are verging, yea, daily falling, into the dread ruin you through rich mercy have escaped? Did the bare thought of being for ever cast out of Jehovah's presence, and having your portion assigned in that place where hope cometh not, make your soul die within you, and fill you with unutterable terror? And will you not still cherish a portion of those feelings, as you consider the state of the unhappy heathen, of whom thousands are daily sinking into that place where the worm of remorse can never die, and where the fire of the wrath of Almighty God, burneth for evermore? And will you not let those feelings influence your conduet to do all that thought can devise and zeal execute for wresting the perishing family of man from the dominion of sin and Satan? Oh ye with whose joy a stranger intermeddleth not, who have felt the indescribable rapture which the assurance of an interest in Jesus gives, who know what it is to possess a well of water springing up into everlasting life, on you, your Saviour calls to exert your energies yet more and more for the conversion of the world. To you much has been given; and from you much is expected. Do you profess to love the Lord Jesus, and yet do you remain careless, while his glorious name is denied, his love despised, and his honour trampled in the dust? Do you profess to desire earnestly the propagation of his Gospel, and the coming of his Kingdom, and yet do you confine yourselves to prayer for this end, unmindful of the commands, Go forth; Labour; Preach the word; Be instant in season and out of season; and of the exhortations which admonish us to be imitators of Christ, who ever went about doing good? Although the efforts of man are, in themselves, wholly inefficient for the renovation of a race of sinners, yet, since the immutable Jehovah has determined that human agency shall hold a distinguished part in the conversion of the world, it is evident that without that agency the world cannot be converted. And to the negligence of man, is doubtless to be attributed the amazing fact, that though God in human nature was manifested to take away sin, and thus has evidenced the truth of his declaration, "As I live I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner," yet have eighteen centuries elapsed since Christ's ascension, and Satan still reigns triumphant in a world, which the Lord from heaven died to save. Is Christ then literally waiting for us, until we be willing to co-operate in bringing about the salvation of this wretched world? Is this the case, and are we still carnal? Is this the case, and are we still living to ourselves -frittering away invaluable time, and wasting in needless luxuries scarce less valuable wealth? Christians of India! arouse yourselves. Awake more fully to the high duties devolving on you. Deem ye yourselves fellow labourers with Him who ever went about preaching the glad tidings of salvation, and do ye rest contented with the labours ye perform? It may be that ye do many things for Christ: circumscribe not, however, your labours for the coming of His Kingdom, to any given limit. We must, in the literal sense of the words, spend and be spent for Jesus; else, where is our love, where our zeal, where our jealousy for the honour of our Lord, where our pity to perishing immortals? Do any of us sufficiently consider the mind of the Holy Spirit as speaking through the Apostle to the Gentiles? "Whosoever calleth on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on him on whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent ?" How evidently this implies, that the world cannot be converted and Christ's Kingdom come, without the fervent co-operation of man with the Holy Spirit, who is promised from on high! How evidently it seems to tell us, that the Holy Spirit's influence is denied us, because we act not up to the precepts He has given us in his word! The Lord Jesus Christ himself has told us, that God so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life. Is it then true that God so loved our guilty world as to give up his well-beloved Son for its salvation? And is it indeed a fact that the Eternal Son, who created all things, the mighty God himself, did verily assume our nature, tabernacle in our vile earth-become wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities-bring in for |